‘Constance Hacket sent the letters and received them for me.’
‘What was the motive for this arrangement?’
‘I knew my aunt would prevent my having anything to do with him.’
‘And you—excuse me—what interest had you in doing so?’
‘My mother had been like his sister, and always helped him.’
All these answers were made with a grave, resolute straightforwardness, generally with something of Dolores’s peculiar stony look, and only twice was there any involuntary token of feeling, when she blushed at confessing the concealment from her aunt, and at the last question, when her voice trembled as she spoke of her mother. She kept her eyes on her interrogators all the time, never once glancing towards the prisoner, though all the time she had a sensation as if his reproachful looks were piercing her through.
She was dismissed, and Constance Hacket was brought in, looking about in every direction, carrying a handkerchief and scent bottle, and not attempting to conceal her flutter of agitation.
Mr. Calderwood had nothing to ask her but about her having received the cheque from Miss Mohun and forwarded it to Flinders, though she could not answer for the date without a public computation back from Christmas Day, and forward from St. Thomas’s. As to the amount—
‘Oh, yes, certainly, seven pounds.’
Moreover she had posted it herself.